With moves towards greater integration of health and social care services, there is a need for improved understanding of the importance and benefits of a person-centred, holistic approach to work in these fields. This accessible text, the product of a collaborative venture between older people's groups and academics, provides students, academics and practitioners across a wide range of health and social care professions with a guide to understanding the value of this approach. Health, well-being and older people: provides an overview of relevant research and service development literature; presents and discusses a range of issues that are important to the health of older people including attitudes and ageism, the body, the environment, family and community, sexuality and having fun; draws on material developed and, in some cases, written by older people themselves; integrates theory and empirical evidence with practice experience; offers models of best practice. Designed with the needs of students in mind, each chapter has helpful aids to understanding including: key learning points; models for case studies; summaries and exercises; glossaries and recommended texts. Throughout, readers are encouraged to think through the implications of the material in respect of their own service settings. Health, well-being and older people is essential reading for students and staff on qualifying and post-qualifying programmes in nursing, social work, social care, social policy, gerontology and related courses. It is also recommended reading for practitioners who will want to engage with the ideas for best practice presented in the book.

With moves towards greater integration of health and social care services, there is a need for improved understanding of the importance and benefits of a person-centred, holistic approach to work in these fields. This accessible text, the product of a collaborative venture between older people's groups and academics, provides students, academics and practitioners across a wide range of health and social care professions with a guide to understanding the value of this approach. Health, well-being and older people: provides an overview of relevant research and service development literature; presents and discusses a range of issues that are important to the health of older people including attitudes and ageism, the body, the environment, family and community, sexuality and having fun; draws on material developed and, in some cases, written by older people themselves; integrates theory and empirical evidence with practice experience; offers models of best practice. Designed with the needs of students in mind, each chapter has helpful aids to understanding including: key learning points; models for case studies; summaries and exercises; glossaries and recommended texts. Throughout, rea

Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change is the first book dedicated to exploring appreciative inquiry (AI) as an approach to change-focused research. More than ever, students and researchers seek to do more than report on what they see following a research study or project, but rather engage the research environment (participants, stakeholders) to promote change. In other words, their studies are as much research-based as they are meant to initiate or sustain social or organizational change. Very often, the nature of this dual purpose - research and change - requires the researcher to use nontraditional approaches that bridge the theory-practice gap. In this book, author Jan Reed draws on the work of David Cooperrider and other pioneers in the area of AI to bridge the current gap between consulting activity and academic research in AI. The book begins with real-world, international insights and experiences of AI as a research methodology and offers the history and principles of AI. Next, it provides ways of linking and differentiating these activities and exploring the range of ways to engage AI in change-focused research and practice - from research question and research design through data collection, data analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of findings. And perhaps most importantly, the book places AI in the context of other research paradigms and approaches, addressing positivist versus naturalistic stances, social constructionist concepts, and related methods and methodologies such as action research, PAR, ethnography, case studies, and narrative inquiry. This book is appropriate for use in graduate-level methods courses devoted to appreciative inquiry, change- or community-based research, organizational development and change, and related topics across the social sciences, education, and management. It will also prove invaluable to researchers and professionals who are interested in using AI but need to know how to frame this approach within the greater context of traditional research. Key Features: Comprehensive introduction to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and the range of debates that it can generate for a researcher or professional used to employing otherwise traditional research models International examples from recent published and unpublished projects in which AI was used, with an emphasis on those that shaped policy, planning, and future practices Discussion and guidance on how to make the connections between AI and various research paradigms and approaches to research, including positivist versus naturalistic research, social constructionist concepts, action research PAR, ethnography, narrative inquiry, and case studies An assessment of the strengths and limitations of AI in research environments Practical guidance and ideas for generating different research questions, managing, organizing, and analyzing data, and communicating and disseminating the final results Individual and group exercises that draw on organizational development techniques as a way to bring AI concepts to life through practice.

"Practitioner Research in Health Care" is concerned with the notion of "practitioner research", a developing field of research. It meets an ever-increasing demand for a research methodology text which recognizes the particular problems and issues of health care practitioners researching their own practice. The advantages and problems of "insider knowledge", and the characteristics of research roles and relationships, and how these can be integrated with practitioner responsibilities, are discussed and examples are used to illustrate these issues.;This book should be of interest to all health care workers involved in research; students and practitioners of midwifery, nursing, occupational therapy and clinical psychology; and doctors.

This book tells the story of generations of a family trying to climb the social ladder. In their attempts to 'better themselves' the family encounter issues of respectability and illegitimacy. This story is based on some of the tales my family have told me over the years, and my own experience of living in a street where my grandmother was a maid. I often wondered what she would have thought of her granddaughter, having a good job as a university lecturer and living in a big house. As part of a working class family in the North East of England, I have seen this struggle many times, each time failing. The disappointment this causes is a backdrop to life, and is always there.

Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change is the first book dedicated to exploring appreciative inquiry (AI) as an approach to change-focused research. More than ever, students and researchers seek to do more than report on what they see following a research study or project, but rather engage the research environment (participants, stakeholders) to promote change. In other words, their studies are as much research-based as they are meant to initiate or sustain social or organizational change. Very often, the nature of this dual purpose - research and change - requires the researcher to use nontraditional approaches that bridge the theory-practice gap. In this book, author Jan Reed draws on the work of David Cooperrider and other pioneers in the area of AI to bridge the current gap between consulting activity and academic research in AI. The book begins with real-world, international insights and experiences of AI as a research methodology and offers the history and principles of AI. Next, it provides ways of linking and differentiating these activities and exploring the range of ways to engage AI in change-focused research and practice - from research question and research design through data collection, data analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of findings. And perhaps most importantly, the book places AI in the context of other research paradigms and approaches, addressing positivist versus naturalistic stances, social constructionist concepts, and related methods and methodologies such as action research, PAR, ethnography, case studies, and narrative inquiry. This book is appropriate for use in graduate-level methods courses devoted to appreciative inquiry, change- or community-based research, organizational development and change, and related topics across the social sciences, education, and management. It will also prove invaluable to researchers and professionals who are interested in using AI but need to know how to frame this approach within the greater context of traditional research. Key Features: Comprehensive introduction to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and the range of debates that it can generate for a researcher or professional used to employing otherwise traditional research models International examples from recent published and unpublished projects in which AI was used, with an emphasis on those that shaped policy, planning, and future practices Discussion and guidance on how to make the connections between AI and various research paradigms and approaches to research, including positivist versus naturalistic research, social constructionist concepts, action research PAR, ethnography, narrative inquiry, and case studies An assessment of the strengths and limitations of AI in research environments Practical guidance and ideas for generating different research questions, managing, organizing, and analyzing data, and communicating and disseminating the final results Individual and group exercises that draw on organizational development techniques as a way to bring AI concepts to life through practice.